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This
week's answer:
Warning:
Approaching
the Edge
Well, Arthur, the first thing to
check is whether or not your pencil is sharp
enough. Ohhhh, that kind of edge! (And
silly me. Who writes with a pencil any more?) The
word "edge" is bandied about quite a bit these
days with so many producers demanding that their scripts
have an edge (as, as far as I remember, all the hard
copy scripts I've read or sent or used for fuel for my
fireplace have had paper that had edges. In fact,
paper is basically all edge with a little tree in the
middle.
Personally, I think this "edge
thing" has gotten a bit out of hand. Here's
why: Good writing always has an "edge,"
as the saying goes (and I wish it would go to another
universe and let them over there deal with it for a
while). Good writing always defines itself as it
goes. It leaves its own unique trail or wake
It awakens us and broadens our perspective while at the
same time giving us a new, sharper focus. It tunes
us to its new station on the dial. We recognize
that we're on a new border and we cross over with
enthusiasm but with some reserve because it's new
territory, one that beckons and at the same time posts
the sign, "Enter at your own risk. When you
leave here, you will be changed somehow forever."
Producers usually don't like to
take time searching for words (or doing things a
producer should or used to do such as reading scripts
and actually getting back to screenwriters who sent
those scripts) to express what they want such as those
above so they cut to the quick and say they want a
script with an edge. The word has been used so
often and covers so much ground that nobody really knows
what it means, really. It's like the best kept
secret in
Hollywood. Tell a producer that your script has an
edge and he and she will put it on the top of their pile
of scripts to read. (The problem with that idea,
though, and the reason some producers have caught on and
haven't been putting scripts with an edge on top of
their piles is because several have reported getting
paper cuts. Edges can do that.) The word before
"edge" that got your script in the front of
the line was "high concept." Which
basically means a script that the general population
will shell out -- what is it, 26 dollars for a movie
these days? -- and feel like they were on some kind of
amusement ride while eating overpriced food and drinks
while talking on or watching or pressing their
cell-phones:
The movie ends and the lights go
up. "That was a cool movie. (punches
buttons on cell-phone). "Hey, whatsup? Cool. Just saw a
cool movie. Kewl. Did you like it? I thought the lead
chick was hot. Awesome. We can check out another
movie like real soon, like. Awesome." And the two
"cellers" are seen walking together, each on
their cells. And they continue to talk on their
instruments of immense distraction and interruption (for
others) with
one another as they leave the theatre.
So this "edge" that
producers and critics and everybody who owns a DVD (or
DVDR or TIVO or even an old fashioned VCR, something
that is made up usually three capitalized letters) use
is not always easy to define. Actually, I hear
tell that there was a clandestine meeting held by producers
in Hollywood about ten years ago, and, during that
meeting, in order to create the image that producers
really know what they were doing -- which they didn't,
but didn't want anybody else to know -- and have some
kind of special knowledge about what films will sell
the most, they decided on the word, "edge," to
basically keep hapless screenwriters guessing what
"edge" meant and keep them vainly trying to
write screenplays with an edge, screenplays with a word
that the "skull and bones producers" made up
that fateful summer night in a city which sleeps... but
usually with its lights on. Hey, how's that for some
descriptive and provocative writing. I like it.
I think it has an edge.
DcH
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